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Diffstat (limited to 'README.txt')
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@@ -1,11 +1,61 @@ -Nanopb is a small code-size Protocol Buffers implementation. +Nanopb is a small code-size Protocol Buffers implementation in ansi C. It is +especially suitable for use in microcontrollers, but fits any memory +restricted system. Homepage: http://kapsi.fi/~jpa/nanopb/ -To compile the library, you'll need these libraries: -protobuf-compiler python-protobuf libprotobuf-dev -The only runtime dependencies are memset() and memcpy(). -To run the tests, run make under the tests folder. -If it completes without error, everything is fine. + +Using the nanopb library +======================== +To use the nanopb library, you need to do two things: + +1) Compile your .proto files for nanopb, using protoc. +2) Include pb_encode.c and pb_decode.c in your project. + +The easiest way to get started is to study the project in "examples/simple". +It contains a Makefile, which should work directly under most Linux systems. +However, for any other kind of build system, see the manual steps in +README.txt in that folder. + + + +Using the Protocol Buffers compiler (protoc) +============================================ +The nanopb generator is implemented as a plugin for the Google's own protoc +compiler. This has the advantage that there is no need to reimplement the +basic parsing of .proto files. However, it does mean that you need the +Google's protobuf library in order to run the generator. + +If you have downloaded a binary package for nanopb (either Windows or Linux +version), the 'protoc' binary is included in the 'generator-bin' folder. In +this case, you are ready to go. Simply run this command: + + generator-bin/protoc --nanopb_out=. myprotocol.proto + +However, if you are using a git checkout or a plain source distribution, you +need to provide your own version of protoc and the Google's protobuf library. +On Linux, the necessary packages are protobuf-compiler and python-protobuf. +On Windows, you can either build Google's protobuf library from source or use +one of the binary distributions of it. In either case, if you use a separate +protoc, you need to manually give the path to nanopb generator: + + protoc --plugin=protoc-gen-nanopb=nanopb/generator/protoc-gen-nanopb ... + + + +Running the tests +================= +If you want to perform further development of the nanopb core, or to verify +its functionality using your compiler and platform, you'll want to run the +test suite. The build rules for the test suite are implemented using Scons, +so you need to have that installed. To run the tests: + + cd tests + scons + +This will show the progress of various test cases. If the output does not +end in an error, the test cases were successful. + + |